McGill Podcasts » Cutting Edge Lectures

Cutting Edge 2015: Development of Personalized Treatments for Chronic Pain – Luda Diatchenko

Michelle Huang — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 21:07:34 +0000

Approximately 20 per cent of Canadians suffer from chronic pain, making it not only the number one reason that people seek health care, but also the number one concern of patients with long-term illnesses. Chronic pain drains more than $10-billion annually in lost productivity and health-care services from the Canadian economy, which is more than the cost of heart disease, cancer, or diabetes. Moreover, there is a personal toll associated with chronic pain that cannot be measured in dollars and cents. Patients living with this condition face challenges such as social isolation, increased risk of suicide, and greater mortality rates. Chronic pain conditions are very difficult to treat and our existing treatment approaches are largely inefficient. One of the reasons of inefficiency of current treatment approaches is heterogeneous nature of chronic pain, as people develop pain for multitude of diverse reasons and each individual has many ways to deal with a disease. My primary objective is to better understand the genetic mechanisms at the roots of chronic pain as a basis for developing new pain-relief drugs and personalized pain therapy strategies. To accomplish this goal, my colleagues and I study chronic pain mechanisms and risk factors through genetic analysis of well-characterized populations of pain patients, through the mapping out the molecular mechanisms that mediate the biological, psychological, and genetic factors that contribute to the onset and persistence of chronic pain.

Guest: Luda Diatchenko (Professor, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Human Pain Genetics, Dept. Genetics, McGill University)

Biological Invasions – The Ecological and Societal Impacts of Non-native Species

Atin Ramola — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 19:27:48 +0000

Dr. Anthony Ricciardi talks about “biological invasions” and how they can cause extinctions, disrupt ecosystems, alter natural resources, threaten human health, and even pose national security problems. He further discusses how ecologists are planning “assisted colonization” for species to rescue species threatened by climate change.

Witnessing the Formation and Evolution of Galaxies

Isabella Liu — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:15:07 +0000

We live in a Universe of remarkable structure. From super-clusters of galaxies, tens of millions of light years across, to grand-design spiral galaxies and small rocky planets like Earth, structure exists on all scales. It wasn’t always this way: through the extraordinary advancements of observational cosmology of the last several decades, we now know the Universe was homogeneous at its beginning. While the physics which links the young and smooth Universe to its underlying Dark Matter skeleton is well-established, perhaps paradoxically we know very little about how the objects composed of regular matter – the stuff you and I are made of – assembled. In a general sense, cosmological structure grows hierarchically; small systems collapse first then merge to form progressively more massive objects. But this is a violent and energetic process, triggering bursts of star formation, feeding matter onto super-massive black holes, stripping galaxies of their interstellar medium, and fundamentally shaping the complex structure we see around us today.

Dr. Webb’s research centers on the growth of structure in the universe, and galaxies in particular. Her approach is to use data at many different wavelengths of light; each wavelength probes a different physical process and tells us something unique about galaxy formation. Because a lot of the physics in galaxies happens behind thick veils of dust, she focusses much of her research on submillimeter (~400-1200µm) and mid/far-infrared (~3-400µm) observations, which directly detect the dust and provide clues to what’s happening behind it. She primarily studies galaxies in the very distant and young universe (i.e., high-redshift); because of the finite speed of light we are seeing these systems as they existed 5-12 billion years ago and can literally watch them form! However, she is also beginning programs to study near-by galaxies since these systems can be studied in much more detail and will provide insight into the processes which formed the galaxies of today.

Christie Rowe: In Search of the Source of Earthquakes

George He — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 21:46:51 +0000

Speaker: Christie Rowe (Assistant Professor, Dept. Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University)

Earthquakes happen every day all over the world. Most are concentrated along the boundaries of tectonic plates, but occasionally, earthquakes happen where we don’t expect them. How do these events start? What controls the location of earthquakes? And what happens to all the energy that is released? Thousands or millions of years of erosion can reveal the deeper crustal rocks, which were the source of ancient earthquakes. Seeking out surface exposures of these ancient faults can give some insight into the physical and chemical controls on earthquakes. Professor Rowe will present stories from her field work across North America, Africa, and the deep ocean offshore Japan in search of answers to these questions. She will show the discoveries made during her April-May 2012 ocean drilling expedition to study the deep ocean fault which produced the great Tohoku 3/11/11 earthquake, and compare this fault to ancient faults in Alaska and Namibia which produced great earthquakes millions of years ago. Finally, she will argue that earthquakes are a key process in forming ore deposits and show examples from Québec and around the world. Here are some links to Scientific American Blog postings written by Dr. Rowe about D/V Chikyu this spring off the coast of Japan and about Earthquake prediction.

Tim Geary: Medicines for Neglected Tropical Diseases: Reversing the Equation

Minya Yang — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:10:35 +0000

More than a billion people, mostly in developing nations, still serve as hosts to roundworms. They are a source of diseases that often kill – yet medicines for these diseases have generally been adopted from veterinary use and have not been optimized for humans. This lecture provides an introduction to parasitic diseases of poverty and describes a novel drug discovery process – involving scientists living in the most affected areas – that has been implemented in South Africa and Botswana. The integration of multiple levels of development is a significant challenge – but one with great rewards.

André Costopoulos: A diversity / tolerance model of cultural evolution

Cody Rei-Anderson — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:09:09 +0000

Professor Costopoulos argues that while humans are probably selected to have a limited ability to make good decisions. Under the ‘diversity-tolerance’ model of cultural evolution, humans are smart enough to come up with a range of potential solutions to the problems we face but not very good at determining which solution is the best.

Alan Evans: Non-invasive mapping of the human brain

Cody Rei-Anderson — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:04:21 +0000

As a specialist in three-dimensional modeling of the living brain, Alan Evans works to understand neurological pathologies inside-out: the natural history of a disease,” He asks: “What parts of the brain exhibit abnormal changes in cortical thickness, for example, over the duration of Alzheimer’s disease? How does that brain map relate to behaviours, such as a decline in language skills?

Elena Bennett: Feeding the world without destroying the planet

George He — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:45:47 +0000

By Elena Bennett (Natural Resource Sciences and McGill School of Environment, McGill)

Agricultural landscapes can provide many different ecosystem services, including food, high quality freshwater, opportunities for recreation, and flood control. Yet we often focus narrowly on the production of food, which can unintentionally undermine provision of other key services. The idea of managing for ecosystem services compels us to consider more than one service and obliges us to consider the interactions and relationships among ecosystem services on the landscape. Yet we don’t know very much about these interactions. Thus, a key goal for science in the coming decade is to improve our understanding of how multiple services are provided across agricultural landscapes. What affects the relative proportions of services? Can trade-offs be reduced or synergies strengthened? We are working with local communities in the Vallée-du-Richelieu MRC (Municipalité Régionale de Comté), a 750 km² regional governance body involving 13 towns southeast of Montréal to build models that they can use to objectively quantify the effect of today’s resource and land management decisions on the current and future provision of multiple ecosystem services.

Colin Chapman: Primate conservation: Is the cup half empty or half full?

George He — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:35:50 +0000

Of the nearly 600 species and subspecies of primates living today, approximately half are in danger of going extinct. In fact, one subspecies in West Africa, Miss Waldron’s red colobus, is likely extinct. Furthermore, the number of recognized threats to primate survival has increased dramatically over the last decade. A decade ago, disease was not considered a factor that could threaten primate populations with extinction, while today there are a number of cases of dramatic primate population declines caused by disease and it is considered a vital factor in conservation planning. Similarly, in the last decade climate change has gone from something largely ignored by many countries to a phenomenon of grave concern. This lecture will discuss the current threats to primate populations, consider how perceptions of these threats have changed, and consider if the situation is hopelessly grave (the cup half empty) or if there are reasons for optimism (the cup half full).

Elizabeth Jones: Blood Flow and Cardiovascular Development

Cody Rei-Anderson — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:48:12 +0000

Every tissue in the body requires blood flow to bring nutrients to the tissue. For this reason, there is significant therapeutic advantage to controlling when and where new blood vessels develop. If we could induce new blood vessels, we could improve wound healing. In situation likes cancer, inhibiting blood vessels from growing into a tumour could starve the tumour and inhibit its growth. This lecture will explain the process of vascular development, the physical forces created by blood flow in cardiovascular physiology and the role that these forces play in forming a mature network of blood vessels.

David Orrell: Perfect Model: Prediction, Science and Aesthetics

Cody Rei-Anderson — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:33:17 +0000

This talk takes an overview of the history and the challenges of prediction, from the oracle at Delphi, right up to the latest methods being developed in areas such as systems biology and economics — and argues that our search for the “perfect model” often reveals as much about our sense of aesthetics as it does about the future.

Gonzalo Cosa: Structure and dynamics of Supramolecular systems one molecule at a time

Cody Rei-Anderson — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 15:58:27 +0000

Advances in electronics, optics and nanotechnology have led to a tremendous progress in optical imaging over the past years. Gonzalo Cosa presents the specific case of fluorescence imaging, where the possibility of visualizing single fluorescent molecules with exquisite resolution gave rise to the field of Single Molecule Spectroscopy.

Stan Boutin: Is there room for ecological conservation in the Oil Sands of Alberta?

Cody Rei-Anderson — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 15:58:25 +0000

The Oil Sands of Alberta present many environmental challenges. Stan Boutin focuses on how terrestrial ecosystems and their components can be conserved in this heavily industrialized landscape.

Environmental change in Canada’s Arctic: how different is the present from the past?

Cody Rei-Anderson — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:05:30 +0000

Arctic regions are experiencing high degrees of environmental change, including thinning of arctic sea ice, increased deposition of airborne pollutants, as well as evidence of a longer growing season. Marianne Douglas uses examples from our research on lakes and ponds in the Canadian High Arctic to show some of the practical applications of paleolimnology in studying regional climate change, archaeology, and airborne pollutants.

How Might Global Warming affect the Variable Hydroclimate of Western Canada?

Cody Rei-Anderson — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:03:39 +0000

Canada’s western interior has one of the world’s most variable climates, with severe drought and torrential rainstorms experienced in recent years. The extreme climate events in this region have been some of the most costly natural disasters in Canada history. Climate models suggest that this hydroclimatic variability could be amplified by global warming — presenting a more challenging future scenario than the projected shifts in average conditions.

From Embryos to Adults: The Life and Times of a Dinosaur

Cody Rei-Anderson — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:48:21 +0000

Dinosaurs have undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent decades. Far from being sluggish reptilian monsters doomed to extinction, new discoveries and new methods of scientific investigation have revealed dinosaurs as complex, highly active animals capable of sophisticated behaviors and as one of the most diverse and successful groups of land creatures in the history of life on Earth.

Inflammation — the fuel of cancer: extinguishing the fire to stop the disease

Cody Rei-Anderson — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:24:58 +0000

Maya Saleh discusses what we have recently learned on the role of our innate immune response in inflammatory diseases and cancer, with a focus on intestinal pathologies, including inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and colorectal cancer.

Dissecting the components of animal behaviour as a window into the human mind

Cody Rei-Anderson — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:17:52 +0000

Yogita Chudasama discusses how neuroscientists have been able to successfully exploit a conceptual framework, derived from research in human experimental psychology, which decomposes cognition into its basic building blocks.

Materials Make Light Work

Cody Rei-Anderson — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:32:57 +0000

What do butterfly wings, Venus flower baskets and healthy doses of elements from the Periodic Table have to do with conveying digital data, music, voice and video by light? They can all be designed to make “light work”.

The First Stars and the End of the Dark Ages

Cody Rei-Anderson — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:21:21 +0000

In the history of the universe, there is a period which is extremely difficult for us to see because there were no sources of light. These cosmic “dark ages” ended when the first stars turned on, providing the first view of the somewhat evolved universe.

Climate Change, Ecosystem Collapse and Cascading Regime Shifts in the Canadian Arctic

Cody Rei-Anderson — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:52:38 +0000

Warwick Vincent explains how global climate change will be increasingly accompanied by discontinuous shifts in aquatic ecosystem structue and function.

Save Our Sea(horses)

Cody Rei-Anderson — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:50:26 +0000

Almost mythical creatures, seahorses have the potential to capture the public imagination and inspire action for marine conservation.

Can we erase memories for therapeutic benefits?

Cody Rei-Anderson — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:51:11 +0000

If we could functionally erase a memory to make someone’s life better would that be acceptable? What if the memory was of a trauma that has incapacitated someone for decades? Why do we need memories if they keep us down?

In a very playful manner, Dr. Karim Nader addresses some of the science that is at the heart of memory research today. The science suggests that memories can be functionally erased, a concept which was taken and expanded to the point of fiction in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Quilts as Mathematical Objects

Cody Rei-Anderson — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:36:55 +0000

The connection between textiles and mathematics is intimate but not often explored, possibly because textiles and fiber arts have traditionally been the domain of women while mathematics was viewed as a male endeavour. How times have changed! Today, textiles and mathematics, like art and science, are recognized for their interwoven, complimentary attributes. In this presentation, Dr. Gerda de Vries examines the connection between textiles and mathematics, in the context of both traditional and contemporary quilts.

The Siren Song of Cancer Cells

Cody Rei-Anderson — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:57:44 +0000

The treatment of complex diseases like cancer may lie in grasping their mechanisms at all levels of biological hierarchy. Most research focuses on understanding how genes cause cancer from within a cell, but much can be learned from intercell interaction. In this regard, cancer cells are not only “antisocial”, but also exhibit a “gang culture”, whereby they act in concert to achieve certain pathological ends. In this “Cutting Edge” lecture, Janusz Rak, a Jack Cole Chair in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and Pediatrics here at McGill University speaks about some of his research which focuses on these new ways to view cancer behaviour.

Mother Nature as a Green Materials Engineer

Cody Rei-Anderson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:53:59 +0000

In this installation of “The Cutting Edge”, chemistry professor Christopher Barrett describes an emerging new guiding principle for materials development at McGill, based on bio-mimicry and self-assembly as an inspiration and a toolbox.

Energy and Climate Change

Cody Rei-Anderson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:46:47 +0000

Dr. Andrew D. Miall (Professor of Geology at the Geology Department, University of Toronto) presents six popular myths that complicate the development of good public policies, though they may make the arguments for protecting our environment stronger. This lecture was recorded as part of the Royal Society of Canada’s “The Cutting Edge” seminar series.

Bonding With Bugs

Cody Rei-Anderson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:56:58 +0000

As part of the Royal Society of Canada’s “The Cutting Edge” series, Nathalie Tufenkji from the Department of Chemical Engineering discusses her work aimed at preventing the binding of infectious organisms to medical devices and to mammalian cell surfaces using an active component of cranberries. This research has applications in fields ranging from medicine to water filtration and distribution.

The Cutting Edge: Nanophotonics

Cody Rei-Anderson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:04:57 +0000

Dr. Andrew Kirk of the D epartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering describes some of the current research being done as to the applications of nanophotonics in the future of telecommunications and also in the field of biosensing. This lecture was recorded as part of the Royal Society of Canada’s “The Cutting Edge” seminar series.

The Effect of Environment on Genes

Cody Rei-Anderson — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:34:18 +0000

Dr. Stephen Suomi, Chair of the Laboratory of Comparative Ethology at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, speaks on risk, resilience, and gene X environment interactions in rhesus monkeys and other primates.